by Hope
I got a lot of flack on my last post for accepting a new dryer as a gift from my dad. It only made me realize just how blessed I am. As a couple of BAD commentors posted, there have definitely been some downs in regards to finances with my dad. But I realize how blessed I am to have a generous dad who loves providing for his family.
He saw this in his parents and I hope I am carrying on the same tradition…meeting needs for no reason.
As we prepared for the delivery of our new dryer, I debated on what to do with the old one.
- I could set it out at the curb for bulk pick up day. A free service offered by our city where they pick up anything you set out. (Trash service is a paid service and they only take what’s in your can.)
- I thought about giving it to the twins to see if they could fix it. But seeing as I still have a car in my yard, I didn’t think this was the right plan as it needs to be gone.
- List it on FB Marketplace.
Gave It Away
In the end, I posted everything I know about it – brand, repairs made and the “sometimes” just doesn’t work issue and listed it for $5. I put in the comments it was a handyman special and free for pick up but FB wouldn’t list it with a $0 amount.
I really had hoped to find someone who could fix it. It was a great dryer and since it worked and then didn’t work at times for the last couple of weeks, I think it was probably a simple fix. Thankfully, it was picked up the next day by an older man who evidently tinkers with them…from an hour away! And whether he will tinker with it and repair it or ? I don’t know.
Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 5 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.
I think you may not understand what ‘pay it forward’ means. It means, instead of repaying someone who did you a favor or gave you a gift, that you do a favor or give someone else a gift. In this situation, paying it forward might mean taking the money you did not spend on your own dryer and putting it toward car repairs for your twins. I don’t think many would consider paying it forward would mean putting non-functional garbage out on the curb for someone else to go out of their way to pick up for $5.
But it was a good chuckle.
The Paying It Forward part was actually in hopes that I will someday be in the position to give so generously financially. Right now my “pay it forward” is in taking in kids who have no where else to live or eat, feeding them, providing for them financially and emotionally and encouraging them to finish school, get jobs and save.
And frankly, in this area, a possibly fixable appliance that one could sell for a couple of hundred dollars for free is a wonderful gift to those that are handy. There is LOTS of poverty here, few jobs that pay more than minimum wage and lots of very handy people. If he is able to fix it, as I think he will be able to as it still runs sometimes…well, that could be food or ? for him and his family.
Remember the saying, some people’s trash is another’s treasure. I believe that would apply here.
You wouldn’t have gotten a couple hundred dollars for an old, broken, dirty appliance.
Not me…someone who can fix it and make it work consistently.
Good for him if he is able to tinker and repair the appliance. Being that the appliance was older, had a repair all ready, and not consistently working properly, then there is little chance of getting “a couple hundred” once he is finished tinkering with it.
Like, yikes. Dude if you don’t like it, why do you come here to hate read her stuff? If you have nothing more to say or contribute, why bother reading and then adding the commentary?
Like, yikes. Dude if you don’t like what I say, why do you come here and hate read my comments? If you have nothing more to say or contribute, why bother reading and then adding the commentary?
You need fresh air! You just come here and post negative stuff, about a stranger. So obviously I am returning the favour. Hope your bedside manner is better than this in real life doc.
You need fresh air! You just come here and post negative stuff, about a stranger. So obviously I am returning the favor.
Did I miss your September debt update? I know September was a somewhat rough month for you financially but were you able to put any money towards the $5982 you had left on loan #1 and pay your $600 towards the car last month? We are heading into the holidays so it will likely get a bit harder to stay laser focused. Your last update had your student loan debt at a little more than $25,000. Have you managed to get it below $25,000 between the two loans?
You haven’t missed it. I will post it later this month, extremely crazy with maintaining work and parents while they are here. Lots of personal stuff going on in that arena.
But the short answer is yes, debt payments, for the most part as planned last month. And with no “quick getaway” this month am *hoping* to put that money towards debt this month. But waiting to see what’s needed to get twins’ cars up and running first so I don’t have to touch my EF.
This is your pay it forward??? I thought you were going to say that your dad’s generosity made you realize that you want to treat your own children with the same spirit and do something for the twins, like pitching in for the repairs for the car you keep complaining about.
I agree. I 1000% thought that the paying it forward was to get the twins car repaired. Instead, it included a dig about the twins car still being broken down in her driveway.
There is also a comment about paying it forward by taking in children in need but based on some of the existing children being in need it sounds like there is an age cutoff. I agree that there is a time when you should no longer need to accept help from parents but if Hope is still accepting help from family at her age then I don’t think it is unreasonable for the twins to be offered financial help where needed.
It would’ve been better if he had taken that $500 and helped his grandchild get his car back up and running instead of buying his daughter something she is perfectly capable of paying for.
It’s one thing for the BAD community to sling mud at me, it’s another to sling it at my dad. Please remember that you don’t know everything…and I’m certainly not going to write about his generosity with the twins. Suffice it to say, he did help the twins…while not with their cars. He was very generous with them and the other kids as well.
I haven’t seen any commenters criticizing your father. The only mud slinging I’ve seen is in your own posts suggesting that he was using gifts and finances to manipulate you in relation to the house he purchased for you and your children.
You’ve said before that you will no longer comment on the twins’ situation, and I suggest you do so, starting now. No posts, no potshots in the comments about vehicles or games or any of that. Vent to your friends if you have to, but don’t vent on the very public internet where anyone can see it, including the twins themselves.
You just couldn’t resist the urge to slide in one more dig at the twins. I sincerely hope the way you talk ABOUT them is not a sign of how you talk TO them.
This is the last time I am going to address this…
Try this scenario…a parent helps an adult child move into their own place. Said parent puts a significant amount of money into the move, stocking and furnishing said place, etc. Now adult child makes a great living at a full time job. He also receives a significant bonus every quarter, even a week after moving into his own place with his parent’s help.
But instead of using this large bonus and regular paycheck to take care of his needs…like say groceries or catching up on his car insurance or repairing his car, he blows it in 3 days on who knows what. Would it be the responsible parent thing to bail said child out AGAIN?
Especially when said parent (and other adults) have literally spent thousands on bailing said child out of some other really bad financial decisions? Now you may say, yes. But in mind my mind that parent is just setting this adult child for a lifetime of expecting “bailouts” and with this particular situation being one that he can deal with…eat at parent’s house when he runs out of food, close enough to walk to and from work, etc.
I try to be careful about what I reveal about the kids on this site. But this is enough. There are things I am willing to help with as a parent. And there are hard lessons I also think my kids should learn now versus waiting to in their late 30s-40s like I did and really have to learn the hard way.
You could be talking about yourself in this comment lmao. But you’ll never see that.
Absolutely!!! In fact, I said that…I want my kids to learn to be better than me. I don’t want them to get to their 30s-40s when they have a family dependent on them to learn to make wise financial decisions.
Ok let’s take a minute or two and breathe. There are things in this situation to be thankful for. One being that this young man has a job in the middle of a world wide pandemic he continues to be able to obtain a paycheck with quarterly bonuses. That is the one biggest blessing which many folks wish they had right now.
Two being that he is able to live on his own with his brother. Not too many young folks my adult kids ages are able to live outside of their parent’s home due to the pandemic, job loss, hours cut, transportation issues, and other things in the area of Florida that I reside in.
Three: He is capable of learning to save money. Notice I said capable. He has to want to learn to save money. This is a very hard concept for folks at any age honestly. He may not want to learn to save money. I remember my parents and even my inlaws when my husband and I were young trying to explain to us to start saving money. I didn’t learn until I was in my late 30s early 40s and regret it often. Life wouldn’t have been so diffcult then.
I remember thinking that things would be ok because
‘well stuff didn’t seem to happen to me like my parents always said it would”. I was one of those young adults who would not listen to any financial hints that anyone would give me. My husband and I went through a lot of rough years. I tried to install the sense of saving on my adult kids. My son is able to save money on a regular basis with my coaching. My girls……forget it. They are just like their dad and I was when we were in our 20s and early 30s. Sometimes I just have to sit and watch life happen. I am very empathetic to my children but I also want them to grow and learn.
My suggestion would be to set up a time to see what exactly is wrong with the vehicle, help him come up with a reasonable plan, and get it out of your driveway before the landlord has issues with it. I would leave the rest of the decision making up to your son with how he wants to handle the vehicle issues once it is out of your driveway.
You might want to take the plank out of your own eye before worrying about the speck in the twins’.
If the car he bought for $1000 is non operational he might consider the insurance a waste( even though the insurance is more about insuring a driver not necessarily insuring the car. He’s young. Have you talked to him about what he wants to do with the car? If he is doing okay with the bike maybe his best bet is to get some money from the dump for it and save for a better vehicle. I was kind of surprised you signed off on the $1000 car since you insisted that your daughter needed a newer car so it would be reliable transportation. I’m betting he bought it because it was the best he could do without help affording better.
If he says he wants to keep it I say give him a deadline and make his Christmas gift a gift certificate for a tow and auto repairs. It’s kind of passive aggressive but it will likely make your point without the nagging that frustrates you and him. Adult kids are experts at tuning parents out so saying things multiple times is likely not doing anything and at this point in his life he may just need to learn things the hard way like you have.
This is not “paying it forward”, selfless behavior I expected when I started reading the post. When I think of giving someone a non working appliance or electronic, it’s a favor for me not to pay the haul away fee through Home Depot or sticker for the city to haul it off my curb.